Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Community sport

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (00:37): (1867) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Community Sport, and the action I seek is that community funding and programs to promote LGBTQI+ inclusion in sport are expanded. Do folks know there are currently no men’s AFL players who are out as gay or bisexual? None – zero. Now, folks might ask, ‘Why does that matter?’ Well, it is not that there are no gay footballers – statistically that is impossible; it is that the culture inside men’s AFL is so homophobic that players are simply afraid to come out, with AFL being seen as a hyper-masculine sport and society trying so hard to teach us all that being queer is somehow weak and feminine and, therefore, bad. The biggest insult that men who are obsessed with this hyper-masculinity can think of is calling someone gay. Why would anyone in the sport ever come out in these circumstances?

Personally, from a young age AFL was a big part of my family life, and I am sure many of us grew up being told by our parents who to barrack for. But it was pretty clear to me quite early on that AFL was not a sport that I would ever be welcomed in, and for many people this is still the case. Too often there is a news story about another dude who has used another homophobic slur, and if that is what they are saying in the game, what are they saying and doing when the refs cannot hear? And the media is certainly not helping. A star Adelaide Crows player referred to someone using a homophobic slur on a field recently – we have all heard about it – and most of the commentary across the media was focused on how many games he will miss and how it would affect the Crows’ chances, as if his number of disposals, kicks or possessions matter. They spoke of the impact on his mental health, as if the bad thing here was him getting caught. Is this the best we can do? Really? Behaviour like this is learned. I am a queer person; I was born this way. But people are not born bigoted. We need to find the point of intervention to stop this culture. We need to stop this systemic homophobia for good.